Bob has been a comic book fan since elementary school and that will never change. After graduating with a BFA in illustration at the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth in 1990, Bob advanced to the professional status of an ink artist in ’92 cutting his teeth on WARLOCK & THE INFINITY WATCH for two years for Marvel Comics. This led to an unbroken stint with Marvel for the next ten years, culminating with his three year run with Priest and Sal Velluto on the critically-acclaimed BLACK PANTHER series, leading to his winning of two Squiddies awards and an Ooks award for ‘Best/Favorite inker’. With projects at numerous publishers over the years like DC, Malibu, Wildstorm, Penny-Farthing Press, Acclaim, Harris, A First Salvo, Valiant Entertainment, IDW and Guardian Media among others, Bob returned to Marvel in 2007 for ANNIHILATION: CONQUEST-QUASAR and in 2011 for HEROES FOR HIRE. He recently worked for Ravesnake Comics from 2013-2015, embellishing two series yet to be officially announced and released. He also started a new relationship with Kingstone Media in late 2015 to present. In the last few years Bob had noticed that the credit usually designated to inkers was not as prevalent as it used to be and with the craft often misunderstood to begin with, especially with the onset of ‘digital inking’ he began writing his ‘Inkblots’ column in SKETCH MAGAZINE in 2007 in order to educate, discuss shop talk, and share his career experiences and the history of the medium. This column continued at First Comics News until 2010.

This ultimately led to the formation of The Inkwell Awards in 2008 in his column which subsequently sprouted into what you see here today thanks especially to founding core committee members SKETCH editor Bill Nichols, Tim Townsend, Jimmy Tournas, and Daniel Best, the invaluable support of Adam Hughes and Mike Marts, as well as a legion of contributors and ink artists Bob is proud to know and associate with.

Born/raised in metro Detroit, Mike began drawing Batman on the backs of his kindergarten papers at age four and became addicted to Jack Kirby and other great artists’ work soon after. He attended the Kubert School at 17 where he learned the foundations of inking from instructor Ben Ruiz, and drooled over the ink work of Hal Foster, Alex Raymond and Joe Kubert from originals on the school’s walls. Later, Mike earned a suitable-for-framing BFA in Art Direction from Detroit’s College for Creative Studies. He then lost his way as an award-winning advertising art director/copywriter for 15 years where his work was seen in by tens of millions of consumers who had no idea who he was. This soon led to writing, drawing and publishing his own comics such as Bru-Hed™ and Nasti: Monster Hunter™. He’s currently a married freelance storyboardist/writer/artist in central CA. Mike creates a weekly online football strip, Game BUZZ™ (http://gamebuzz.smackjeeves.com/) and blogs weekly (but not weakly) on all things artistic at WednesdaysHeroes.com (http://tinyurl.com/blogapw), where commissions are also available.

RHYS EVANS: Website Maintenance, Auctioneer: 11/15-present

Since discovering comics at the age of fourteen (Amazing Spider-Man (Vol. 2 #2) Rhys has been hooked and whilst not always keeping up with storylines still loves the colourful vibrant characters that comics give us. In adult years he has started building his collection of art and signatures relating to comics with his most precious pieces being Joe Simon artwork (non comic) and a Tony Daniels page inked by Sandu Florea.

Inking is the art of enhancing an illustration through the means of redrawing pencil lines with ink and its related tools. This enhancing, or 'ink editing', would elaborate in the areas of, but not limited to, weight, space, depth, definition, contrast, texture, composition and design. The Inkwell Awards promotes this often overlooked and under-appreciated art form by serving as a source of education for inking and recognizing excellence and achievement of individual artists working in the field of comic book sequential illustration.